The present invention relates to a video conferencing technique in which a conference terminal can output stereophonically-processed voices together with images of participants of a conference.
Patent Document 1 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,724) discloses an all-participants-displaying-type video conferencing system. In this all-participants-displaying-type video conferencing system, a video conference terminal of each participant is provided with display units as many as the number of the participants of a conference, to display respective images of the participants of the conference. Thus, the images of all the participants of the conference are always displayed.
Further, Patent Document 2 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,022) discloses a floor-control-type video conferencing system. In this floor-control-type video conferencing system, a speaking person is detected and the image of the speaking person is selected and displayed on a video conference terminal of each participant.
Further, Patent Document 3 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,327,567) discloses an audio teleconference system using a 3D audio technique. According to this audio teleconference system, a conference terminal of each participant of a conference outputs 3-audio-processed (stereophonically-processed) voice data of participants.